If I Just Breathe
by White Firebird
Summary: "You just have to take a deep breath and give it time..."


**Been a while since I wrote anything...I know, I've been bad. I'm trying though! I write a little bit each day when I'm not with my friends or working. Anyways, enough of that...I got this one-shot idea from the old Michelle Branch song, "Breathe". Hope you all enjoy!**

**And ohbytheway I don't own iCarly. **

Sam Puckett sat by her bedroom window, staring blankly at the overcast skies. A strand of her blonde hair fell over her eye, and, sighing, she blew it out of her line of vision. The skies matched her mood, as she moved from the window and plopped down onto her bed, staring at the ceiling and shaking her head. Today wasn't one of her better days, she would readily admit that. She was more vicious than usual at school, she must have given Gibby at least six dead arms and four Texas wedgies, slept through all of her classes (even gym!), and completely blew off iCarly rehearsals without so much as sending a text to Carly to let her know she wasn't going to show up. The only normal part of her day was lunch (of course), where they had fish sticks. But after that, immediately sought out Gibby and threw him to the ground, where she slapped an ankle lock on him and made him scream bloody murder. She didn't know why the fish sticks made her so rambunctious and irritable. They just did.

Hearing a familiar little jingle come from her phone, she rolled over onto her side and saw that she had a text from Carly. Opting to ignore it, she slammed her phone back down on her desk and continued to stare at the wall. Sam knew that Carly knew why this day was so much more different for Sam than other days were. And it had something to with a brown haired, tech-loving, Galaxy Wars quoting nub that lived across the hall from Carly.

Six months ago to the day, she realized that she had developed a bit of a crush on Freddie (and by 'a bit', she really, really liked him, more than any other guy she had ever crushed on.) And for the past six months, she had done everything she could possibly think of, without flat out telling him, to get Freddie to notice that she had feelings for him. She had started acting like more of a friend to him; didn't work. She had stopped beating on him as much as she did; didn't work. She tried having tech-related conversations with him; didn't work. She even took the blame for setting Mr. Howard's car on fire, something she would have blamed on Freddie in the past, and even that didn't work. So eventually, she just gave up on the whole thing while Carly constantly berated Freddie for being such a dummy, while he acted like he had no idea what was going on with Sam.

Her phone rang again, and this time, she picked it up and answered, figuring she'd humor Carly by talking about it with her (or at least trying to.)

"Hey Carls…what's up?"

"Are you alright, Sam?"

Concern rang through her best friend's voice, causing Sam to merely sigh and roll her eyes. Of course she wasn't alright. Carly knew why she was so down in the dumps today, and yet she still asked. Yeah, she knew that Carly was only looking out for her best interests and wanted to lend a helping hand, but right now, she didn't need anyone's sympathy, even if it was Carly.

"No Carls, I'm not. You know I'm not. I don't mean to sound rude here, but what do you want? I'd rather be left alone, if you don't mind."

Although she wasn't there in person, Sam could feel the hurt on Carly's face. She let out yet another sigh and opened her mouth to apologize, one of the rare times she wasn't guilt tripped into doing so.

"Listen Carls, I'm sorry…it's just, you know why this day sucks for me. So if I come across more moody than usual, then my bad."

"It's okay Sam…I just don't wanna see you so down in the dumps like this, you know? He's just…well, he's a little slow when it comes to these kinds of things. He'll realize it though, Sam. Freddie can't act this dumb forever."

Sam shook her head in disbelief as she took a deep breath and thought of what to say. "Carls, come on, let's be realistic here. It's been six months. I've acted nicer to him than I have to my own sister. I mean, I took the blame for setting Howard's car on fire! And you know I'd of blamed that on him if that happened a year ago! How could the dork not see that I care about him after that!"

Silence enveloped the air for a few moments, Sam only hearing Carly's short breaths on the other end of the phone.

"I don't know, Sam", came Carly's soft, timid voice. "You've just got to give it time."

"I've given him six months. Why bother trying if he's never gonna see past his own thick-headedness and realize how I feel for him?"

"You've just got to take a deep breath and give it time", Carly repeated before she said her goodbyes and left Sam alone. After putting her phone back on the table, Sam sat up and decided that she was hungry. But right before she could get her snack on, her phone rang once more, and, getting irritated this time, she turned around sharply on her heel and picked up her phone, ready to scream at Carly.

"Listen Carls, stop it! I'm okay!"

"Sam?"

The voice on the other end, however, didn't belong to her best friend; it belonged to the boy who had been giving her these headaches for the past six months. She mentally cursed herself for ever deciding to answer the phone, and she contemplated hanging up for a moment. But then he spoke again, and she wanted to really just kick herself in the face over and over.

"Are you there?"

"What do you want, Frednub?"

The words came out colder than they usually did. She could almost see Freddie looking at his phone with a bit of bewilderment in her head. He remained silent for a few moments, and before he could say anything, she cut him off.

"No wait; don't answer that question, dork, because I already know the answer. If you're calling me to ask if I'm doing alright, then here's your answer…NO!"

She could feel Freddie flinch on the other line, and for a moment, her thumb grazed across the red button that would have ended the call, but as she was about to press it, Freddie and that damn voice of his (the voice that seemed to always swim around in her head when she didn't want it to) stopped her before she could pull the trigger.

"Um, alright, nice to talk to you to Sam…but I was actually asking if I could come over and we could talk about the project we have to do together in Mr. Henning's class…"

The color in Sam's face drained a bit as she heard him speak. _'Oh, crap'_, she thought to herself. She had completely forgotten about the stupid science project that their dumb hippie teacher had paired them up for. Sam then began pacing back and forth across her room, contemplating what to say to Freddie next.

"Uh, if this is a bad time, I can always talk to you about it tomorrow during class…", he said, his voice trailing off, making out like he was going to hang up the phone and leave her be. But she quickly stopped that before it became reality.

"No, it's not, you dummy. Just…ugh, come over with the stuff we need for the project. But don't think you're staying here long! I'm in a bad mood and I don't want to have to break your face to the point where you're unrecognizable."

"You want to break my face?", he asked in a somewhat hurt/incredulous tone of voice.

"If I'm in a good mood, I'll only break your nose…but if I'm in a bad mood, which I am, you'll probably have to live the rest of your life looking like a mummy."

She heard him audibly gulp through the phone and she smirked a little bit. "See ya in a bit, Fredwardo."

The smirk quickly faded away when she hung up the phone. _'What am I gonna do?'_, she asked herself as she stopped pacing around her room and looked out the window. Freddie only lived about fifteen minutes away from her house, and now that he was driving, it was probably only a six or seven minute drive. What was she gonna say? She walked out of her room and slid down the railing to her living room, plopping down on the couch where she'd greet him with either a monotone welcome or a fist to the nose for driving her batshit crazy the past six months.

She thought about this for a few minutes, biding the time until Freddie arrived, and she came to her resolution rather quickly. She'd just pretend that the past six months didn't exist, never happened. Did it bother her that she so quickly came to that answer? A little, yeah. She really, really liked the little dork, and those feelings would probably never go away. But for her own sake and sanity, she needed to act like she hadn't been putting herself out in the open for Freddie like that, only to realize that he didn't feel the same way about her.

Sam was removed from her thoughts when she heard a car door slam shut. She sat up and peeked out her front door and saw Freddie digging through the backseat of his car for something. Quickly turning away, she ran back upstairs to her room and jumped on her bed, giving off the appearance that she wasn't just anxiously waiting for him to arrive.

When she heard her doorbell ring, she screamed loudly, "Door's open, nub!", smiling contently for a moment that she was able to say that so effortlessly. When she saw him appearing, she said, "God you nerd, don't you knock when you enter- "

But she was cut off when she saw Freddie walk in holding a bouquet of red roses, a sincere look on his face. Sam was speechless while Freddie grinned.

"Wha…how…who…what?"

He handed the flowers to Sam, who took a brief moment to smell them (they smelled nice!), before he sat down in the chair across from her and began to explain himself. "Well, a little while ago, a little birdie told me that a certain blonde headed demon had a little crush on a certain techie."

She remained speechless while Freddie continued to talk on, that smile never leaving his lips.

"And this little birdie told me that this blonde headed demon had been crushing on this dork for the past six months, but the dork had no idea what this birdie was talking about. So eventually the birdie took the dork aside and slapped some sense into him, and he saw everything clearer than he had before."

"Um…", Sam began, still cradling the roses in her arms, "Is this little birdie someone we know? A brunette who has panic attacks and lives with her zany older brother?"

"Maybe", he states, still smiling as he moves from the chair to the edge of her bed, mere inches away from her. "So the dork realized how much of a dummy he had become and set out to fix things so that the blonde headed demon didn't feel like a dummy too.."

Freddie moved as close as he could next to Sam, their faces mere inches apart. He could feel her warm breath on his face, and he smiled even brighter than he was a few seconds ago. "I'm done being a dummy, Sam", was all he said before he moved in to kiss her…except when he tried, he found himself falling face first on the floor, hearing Sam exclaiming something about foreign bacon or whatever.

But just as quickly as she left, she re-entered her room and pulled Freddie off the floor and onto his feet. As he straightened himself out, he went to say something but instead got a peck on the cheek from Sam, her eyes lit up and a smile to match it on her lips.

"I'm done being a dummy too, Freddork. But there's foreign bacon outside my door waiting for me!"

She then ran back out, but stopped once more, poking her head into the room. "And if it's any consolation…I like you."

And once more, she smiled, hearing Freddie say that he liked her back as she raced down the steps to her front door. Opening the door to grab the bacon and kick the delivery man out of here, she sighed as she saw Freddie walk out of her room, the roses in his hand.

"_Guess Carly was right"_, she mused to herself, smiling at the bacon and her favorite dork. _"All I had to do was just breathe."_


End file.
